Baby bedtime battle
Stories by MAJORIE CHIEWBabies are sweet little angels when they are fast asleep. For some parents, the problem is getting their children to sleep and stay asleep.
YOU spend half an hour singing lullabies and rocking the baby to sleep. Baby’s eyes are closed so you put her in the cot, and tiptoe out of the room. You gently close the door and just as you are about to reach for the newspaper or the TV remote, baby starts wailing.
Whoever came up with the phrase “sleeping like a baby” to describe someone in deep slumber got it all wrong. That’s because babies don’t sleep well, especially during the early months when they are not able to “self-soothe” themselves to sleep.
 |
Dr Judith Owens: ‘In the United States, the practice of having the baby settle himself at bedtime is encouraged. |
‘‘According to a worldwide survey, some 23.5% of children aged two to six years had sleep problems reported by parents in Beijing. Another study shows that 20% of three-year-olds wake up every night in Switzerland.”
There’s more bad news for sleep-deprived parents. According to Dr Owens, the conventional wisdom that babies outgrow their sleep problems isn’t always true.
“One study shows that over 80% of toddlers who had sleep problems continued to have sleep problems three years later,” says Dr Owens at a media presentation in Singapore on Sleeping Like A Baby, which is about sleep problems in children and treatment of infant sleep problems.
While parents wish for their babies to sleep through the night, Dr Owens says that this is not possible because an infant wakes up every few hours for feeds. “A baby is able to sleep through the night only at about three to four months of age.”
When babies are three to four months old, they may gain the ability to “self-soothe”, to sleep without the assistance of the parent or other aids.
Bedtime tricks
Dr Owens points out a big difference in sleep culture between the United States and Asia – “co-sleeping” which means having the infant share a bed/sleeping space with the parent. This stems from the cultural practices of including the child in the family and family environment.
In the United States, she says, the expectation is different. The child will learn to sleep by himself and it’s an important developmental goal for the parent.
In the United States, the practice of “self-soothing” or having the baby settle himself at bedtime is encouraged. It means putting the baby to bed drowsy so that the baby does not learn to depend on being rocked, fed or held in order to fall to sleep.
Transitional objects like a blanket, stuffed toys or pacifiers are commonly used. It’s a way of providing comfort to the baby when he is sleeping by himself rather than with the parent.
Dr Owens deems that transitional objects are not used as much or are unnecessary in Asian cultures because the checking method is used. This means, after putting the baby to bed, the parent regularly checks on the baby and then leaves. This is repeated until the baby falls asleep.
“It’s an important behavioural management strategy and it’s very dependent on how tolerant a parent is on allowing a child to cry. There is a lot of difference across cultures at that level of parental tolerance,” she says.
“Some parents are able to follow through but other parents can’t tolerate their baby crying and have a difficult time dealing with that.”
According to her, in the United States, sometimes physicians recommend or parents would use over-the-counter medication to help their older children sleep.
But this is not an ideal solution, partly because even in the United States, there is no sleep medication approved for use in children. Moreover, there will be concerns over long-term safety issues and the effectiveness of such medication. Most physicians are reluctant to prescribe medication to help children sleep, she says.
Baby experts are also looking at an alternative way – infant massage – to deal with sleep problems.
Says Dr Owens: “There is very good data that suggest massage in newborn babies can help them to establish a regular sleep-wake rhythm. Some studies have shown that infant massage can shorten the time to fall asleep and reduce night time waking.”
An important component of massage is that it lessens stress and reduces anxiety. It has been said that when a baby has trouble falling asleep, the parents get very anxious and the baby can sense this. So if you interrupt this cycle, it will be helpful in reducing tension and anxiety around bedtime.
Snooze boost
 |
In Asia, babies usually share sleeping space with their parents, but in the West, the child is left to sleep by himself – an important developmental goal for parents. – Pic courtesy of Johnson & Johnson |
“We spend one-third of our lives sleeping and babies sleep more than us – they spend half the time sleeping during their first two years. That’s an enormous amount of time devoted to an activity that’s really important.”
Hormones active in growth and development in children is produced primarily during deep sleep. If that stage of sleep is disrupted, you may see an impact on growth.
The body’s immune functions (to fight infections) may be compromised by poor quality sleep, says Dr Owens.
Also, children who do not get adequate sleep may have more injuries because their concentration suffers and they are also more impulsive.
On daytime sleepiness in children, which is considered a sleep problem, Dr Owens says: “Either the child is not getting enough sleep or sleep is disrupted by night wakings. Inadequate and disrupted sleep cause daytime sleepiness.
“This in turn will result in other problems such as learning, behavioural and mood problems which impair cognitive development and social/family functioning.”
Developmental or learning problems include impairments in attention, memory, organisation, creativity and motor skills.
Behavioural problems mean increased aggressiveness, hyperactivity, poor impulse control and distractibility.
And, sleep deprivation or poor quality sleep also affect the moods of children causing them to be more irritable and have more negative moods, says Dr Owens.
Related stories:
Monitoring habitual snoring in children
RSS
